Nicolas de STAËL exhausted by his work as a painter.

Nicolas de STAËL (1914.1955)

Autograph letter signed to a “dear old man” [probably Jacques Dubourg]
Two pages large in-4°.
Slnd [Antibes. 1954.1955]. Unpublished letter to correspondence.

“Don’t ever say that I have a lot of paintings, that’s not true. I'm at the end. »

Striking letter from Nicolas de Staël exhausted by his work as a painter.

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“Dear old man, Thank you for your word. I won't last beyond May 15. How do you expect me to have enough paintings for us to choose from? We buy what's there or we don't buy , that's all. I spent my entire first battle accepting money before showing anything, it's not very regular, but what can I do. Carré plays the clown [gallery owner Louis Carré, one of his oldest supporters]. You complained about doing eighteen sermons in a row, I can't go through that many tables in six months. Don't ever say I have a lot of paintings, that's not true. I'm at the end. Very nice, Noailles, perhaps we will see him again [the patron Charles de Noailles]. Hello, be well. Never speculate. Kind regards. Nicholas. »

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This unpublished letter, of which neither the recipient, nor the date, nor the place, are known, can however be placed approximately towards the end of the year 1954-1955. Indeed, Staël's expression of intense anguish is specific to this period of the painter's life; this one not being tinged with as much despair before. On the other hand, the familiar sincerity of what is expressed here, almost in a tone of confidence, could suggest that Staël is writing to Jacques Dubourg (1897-1981), art dealer and very close friend

A particular point mentioned here by the painter is indicative of the new pressure he must bear, that of the art market, about which he questions: “We buy what is there or we don’t.” Don't buy, that's all. I spent my entire first battle accepting money before showing anything. It’s not very regular but what can we do?”

He then found himself in an extremely delicate situation: “Courted by art lovers from all over the world, at a precise moment when ancient and modern painting were becoming “speculative” values, Staël signed a contract in June 1953 (…) exclusivity for America, with the famous dealer Paul Rosenberg, based in New York. It's fortune. It is also, from now on, the obligation to produce, to satisfy the pressing demands of merchants and amateurs (I)”.

This letter also mentions Charles de Noailles (1891-1981): “Very nice Noailles, perhaps we will see him again” , a prestigious patron and savvy collector of the avant-garde, who had bought his first painting by Nicolas de Staël in 1948 (II).

It is also a question here of the Parisian gallery owner Louis Carré (1897-1977) with whom the painter had signed a contract in 1946 and whom he evokes here in a sarcastic allusion: “Carré plays the clown” , a probable sign of disinterest or at least, from a lack of investment from the gallery owner in such a crucial and exhausting moment for the painter.

Indeed, exhibition projects followed one another in 1955: at the Grimaldi Museum for the summer; at the Galerie Jacques Dubourg for the month of June; at the Antibes museum scheduled for August (exhibition which will be maintained despite the artist's suicide); and two projects in Europe: at the Tooth Gallery in England and at the Zurich Museum.

Staël works on several canvases at the same time, the works leave the workshop too early, sometimes going so far as to be damaged and require retouching. He asks in our letter: “How do you expect me to have enough paintings for us to choose from?” . This reflection echoes two letters written in 1955 to Jacques Dubourg: “I cannot paint kilometers of still lifes and landscapes, that is not enough ” (III), or “Don’t take me for a factory, I do what that I can. We’ll see” (IV). In this sense, he extends his idea here: “Never say that I have a lot of paintings, it's not true” .

He seems to ask his friend for support that would escape the lies, the infernal rhythm of this environment which undermines his soul and prevents him from creating as an artist, forcing him to reproduce an expected and fixed aesthetic. As proof of his attachment to this idea, he returns to it just before his greetings in an imperative and serious sentence: “Never speculate” .

In this poignant letter, Nicolas de Staël above all emphasizes the fragility of his strengths, in a very concrete way, by evoking the deadlines imposed on him: “I cannot produce so many paintings in six months” . This recurring term in the painter's expression is analyzed by Françoise de Staël: “This trivial expression when it is related to a moment of spiritual tension, takes on another meaning: it is indeed each time a elevation. “To descend” is understood as descending from the ideal into the illumination of color. Being always at these fires is consuming for a man” (V).

Nicolas de Staël also confirms the inevitability of this point of view in our letter: “I would not hold out beyond May 15” . It says everything about the exhaustion and tension that the painter suffered, not to mention the premonitory charge that this sentence could contain in light of his suicide on March 16, 1955.

He finally ends his letter with a terse and clear observation: “I am at the end” . At the end of his infinite quest for renewal, at the end of his paintings, of his work; exhausted. The meaning of this sentence is obviously multiple but he himself describes this serious extremity to which he has reached: “I will go without hope to the end of my heartbreaks, to their tenderness. (…) I will go to the point of deafness, to the point of silence and that will take time. I cry alone in front of the paintings, they humanize themselves slowly, very gently in reverse” (VI).

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(I) – Staël , Guy Dumur, Flammarion, Paris, 1975, p.79

(II) – Nicolas de Staël , Center Pompidou, Paris, 2003, p. 47.

(III) – Letter to Jacques Dubourg, November 6, 1954. Nicolas de Staël – Letters. Ed. The Sound of Time. 2014, pp. 612 to 615.

(IV) – Letter to Jacques Dubourg, Antibes, February 26, 1955. Nicolas de Staël – Letters. Ed. The Sound of Time. 2014, p. 680.

(V) – Catalog Raisonné of the painted work , Françoise de Staël, Editions Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 1997, p.161.

(VI) – Letter to Pierre Lecuire, Antibes, November 27, 1954. Nicolas de Staël – Letters. Ed. The Sound of Time. 2014, pp. 630 to 632.